Insomnia
by theshowerciara
Summary: Written for Ninapolitan's birthday! Happy Birthday Nina!


insomnia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINA!!

xXx

At ten pm, you can hear the world getting ready to fall asleep. Children's bedroom lights going out. The TV's getting switched off. The lovers getting ready for the night ahead, preparing for the marathons that they want, but the one-off is what they're more likely to get.

At eleven, it's almost the same. The sky may be a little darker, the moon a little brighter. People are finishing up at restauraunts, wanting to get home before midnight, so that they aren't too tired for work in the morning. Thinking about that makes you scoff, they don't know the meaning of the word tired.

Midnight. The changing of the guard, the changing of the day. Everything in the world changes, and nobody knows about it. The world is spinning, moving quickly, but nobody out there can or will look at it. It's amazing, a new day has begun, but nobody realises it unless you actually check a calendar. And even then, it's not that special. Every time the clock rolls around another hour, the day changes in one country. Nobody seems to notice that one fact.

One am. The 'witching hour' is over. The world is quiet, except for the drunks out on the street, singing. Nobody moves. The place is silent, just waiting for something spectacular to happen. It never does. Life's a dud, and all you can do is sit and watch it go by.

Two am. The first vestiges of tiredness come upon you now. You don't even think that it will happen, that sleep will come. Then you realise that it _can't_happen, that if it does, it will be worse than if you do sleep. So you drink your coffee, and smoke a cigarette - if you smoke- and force yourself to stay awake, thinking about how it's only a few hours, that it won't be long.

Three am. This is the worst hour. Getting over this puts you into the home stretch. This is where books become invaluable, and if you write, some of your best stuff comes out now. If you write songs, it's where the emo, heartfelt ones come out. Most of the best known songs come from bouts of insomnia. You can just tell, with how it's written. It's weird, but you just _know._And that knowledge scares you more than anything else, because you've been there, writing those songs and poems.

Four am. The time when, in the summer, the sun begins to rise. There's four hours between New York and Alaska. When you're over the hardest part of the night, the part that makes you want to curl up and cry because you're trying to succeed in the impossible, there's someone who's just starting that journey, and you succeeding can make the difference, whether that person knows it or not.

Five am. It's still a little early to get up from your bed, but you could. You can go through your morning actions, pretending that everything's ok, that you don't mind everything being the way it is. That you didn't want or need to go to sleep anyway. Even though a night of uninteruppted sleep is one of the things you crave the most. You stay in bed though, trying not to bring attention to yourself. It's easier that way.

Then, the clock finally hits six am. You get up, go through the motions of showering, dressing and eating. You drink coffee, so you don't fall asleep in Biology next to the cute guy. You throw on a long-sleved tee, to hide the scars. You put on baggy jeans, so that nobody can make out the shape of your legs. Your feet are encased in skater shoes, because they provide room but are heavy.

You leave your house, leaving behind the mother who wishes you weren't there, and the father who thinks his daughter is a freak. You get into your car, look at the photo of the boy you once loved, before he ripped out your heart and stood all over it.

And when you get to school, you see everyone. The ones who have it all, the ones who you know will drop out and have a child before they're twenty, the geeks, the prom queens, the jocks.

And him.

And you know that nobody will ever fit you as well as he does, that nobody will ever play your heart the same way he does.

And a lone, solitary tear runs down your cheek.


End file.
